Overview:• Health authorities in Indonesia have closed down a popular chiropractic chain after the death of a young Jakarta woman Allya Siska Nadya and the disappearance overseas of the American practitioner Randall Cafferty, who treated her.

• Health workers have celebrated a key step towards eradicating the flesh-burrowing guinea worm after South Sudan — once by far the worst-affected country — recorded a massive drop in infections.

• South Australia’s Health Minister Jack Snelling has complained to his federal counterpart about short-term funding deals for adult dental services, which he says are compromising patient care.

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 11th January 2016. Read by Rebecca Foster. Health News

Health workers have celebrated a key step towards eradicating the flesh-burrowing guinea worm after South Sudan — once by far the worst-affected country — recorded a massive drop in infections.

“South Sudan is on the verge of eliminating guinea worm disease,” South Sudan Health Minister Riek Gai Kok said in a statement, after workers recorded just five cases last year, a more than 90 per cent drop from 2014, when 70 cases were recorded — the highest number globally.

Guinea worm is a debilitating parasite that digs out the body — including even eyes and sexual organs — but is close to being stamped out for good following a two-decade campaign by The Carter Centre, a not-for-profit organisation founded by former US president Jimmy Carter.

Last year there were 22 cases in just four nations across Africa, compared to 3.5 million in 20 countries in 1986 when The Carter Centre began its massive push … to stop the water-borne parasite.

If the campaign succeeds, guinea worm will become the first parasitic disease to be eradicated and only the second human disease to [be] wiped out worldwide after smallpox in 1979.